JALANDHAR: The Akali Dal Badal stood for panthic unity but not at the cost of the party’s ideology. Stating this at a press conference here on Oct.24, the party’s senior vice president and member of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), Kuldip Singh Wadala, said all those who subscribed to the policies and programs of the party were welcome to join it under the leadership of Parkash and Singh Badal. Asked if Simranjit Singh Mann, who recently quit the ad hoc committee of the rival Amritsar Akali Dal, too, was welcome to join the Badal Dal, Wadala said it would have to be the collective decision of the PAC. Commenting on the division in the Amritsar Dal, he quipped the Badal Dal apprehensions were coming true, adding a unity which ‘was not based on principles and ideology was bound to come apart.
War Lala said the resignation of Mann and Randhir Singh Cheema ‘was a manifestation of the internal division in the Amritsar Dal on the recent zila Parishad and panchayat gambit elections: When told that the Badal Dal, in its race to project supremacy over the Amritsar Dal has not only been admitting the rival party leaders without any discrimination but also giving them prominent positions in the party Setup, notwithstanding their suspicious role in Sikh politics in the past.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 11, 1994
